The sense of touch is one of the five senses by which we gather information about the world around us. The sense of touch gives rise to feelings of pleasure and pain and is used to determine the shape, hardness, texture, and temperature of objects. The sense of touch has special importance in situations where the sense of sight cannot be used. For example, the sense of touch is used by the blind for a variety of purposes, including reading with braille. The sense of touch is also used extensively in the field of medicine because the shape and hardness of internal body parts (which are hidden from sight under a layer of skin) are often an excellent guide in diagnosing and treating disease.
One of the most publicized uses of the sense of touch in medical diagnosis is the detection of breast cancer. One out of every eleven women in the United States develops breast cancer. It is the most common form of cancer in women and is the chief cause of cancer deaths among United States women. Breast cancer is characterized by the formation of lumps in the breast and early detection of the lumps is considered extremely important in treating the disease. Breast lumps can be detected by X-ray radiation photography or by manual examination. The known tendency of X-ray radiation to cause various types of cancer generally prevents its routine use for detection. Accordingly, most breast cancers are discovered by the detection of lumps by physical examination of the breasts. Manual examination of the breasts is included by most physicians in their routine examinations of women. To help with early detection, the American Cancer Society also recommends monthly self-examinations for women.
To reduce friction and thereby facilitate movement of the hands across the breasts, the American Cancer Society recommends that the monthly self-examinations be conducted during a bath or shower when the skin is wet and soapy. For any number of reasons, many women find it inconvenient to take the additional time for self-examination during their bath or shower. And, for obvious reasons, it is not practical to use water and/or soap as a skin lubricant for breast examination when partially clothed, e.g., at a physician's office. Creams, powders, or lotions are more suitable as friction reducers, but still are rarely used because of the mess. Therefore, most physicians and women conduct breast examinations by using their hands directly on dry skin.
Unfortunately, manual examination of the breasts does not ensure that a lump will be detected. In an article entitled "Physicians' Abilities to Detect Lumps in Silicone Breast Models" published in the Apr. 19, 1985 issue of the Journal of The American Cancer Society, (Vol. 253, No. 15, pp. 2224-2228), Dr. Suzanne W. Fletcher et al. of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill described a study which tested the ability of 80 physicians to detect lumps of varying sizes, hardness, and depth in silicone breast models. Dr. Fletcher et al. found that the physicians were able to detect only 44 percent of the lumps.
It is not difficult to understand why the detection results were so poor in the study. When conducting a breast cancer examination with bare hands on dry skin, the examiner must ignore the unwanted touch stimuli (i.e., the "noise", e.g., temperature, texture, and, if a self-examination, stimuli from the breast itself) in favor of the desired touch stimuli which enable the determination of shape and hardness of an object (i.e., the "signal"). The sense of touch is clearly an ability which can be developed with practice. For example, thousands of blind persons are able to read braille lettering, but a sighted person touching braille for the first time is usually unable to distinguish the number or pattern of the protrusions. Consequently, Dr. Fletcher et al. recommended more training for physicians to better develop their senses of touch.
Perry, et al., U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,021, issued Apr. 14, 1987, which is incorporated by reference, discloses a touch enhancing pad and a method of using the pad to enhance the sense of touch. The pad, as claimed, comprises a sealed enclosure of a single piece of pliable, elastic material and a liquid lubricant inside the enclosure in an amount sufficient to fully coat the interior of the enclosure, provided that the amount of the liquid lubricant permits the enclosure to be flattened with at least about 75 percent of the surface area of one wall in contact with the other wall with only a minimum layer of lubricant between the walls.
Schonholtz, U.S. Pat. No. 3,633,216, issued Jan. 11, 1972, discloses a rubber surgical glove having an extra thickness over at least one finger to help prevent puncturing. In one embodiment, illustrated in FIG. 4, a finger of the glove contains two rubber layers with a colored liquid in between so that a puncture of one of the layers will be immediately apparent to the surgeon.
Paschal, U.S. Pat. No. 2,694,396, issued Nov. 16, 1954, discloses and claims a massaging pad formed by sewing together a pair of satin sheets in such a way that friction between the sheets is reduced (the "warp" of one sheet is disposed at a substantial angle to the "warp" of the other). Paschal also discloses a modified form of the device comprising two sheets of flexible plastic material fused or sealed together with a lubricant on the inside. The Paschal device is allegedly an aid to massagers because it reduces the friction between the massager's hands and the body part being massaged. The device does not, however, enhance the sense of touch. Instead, the device masks the sense of touch because it is made of materials which do not readily transmit touch stimuli.